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Thursday, February 5, 2015

The
Academy Award-winning tandem of Joel and Ethan Coen has been known to
write screenplays that they will themselves direct (“True Grit,”
“No Country for Old Men,” “Fargo”). They now make a rare
exception for the Angelina Jolie-directed war film, “Unbroken.”

The
critically acclaimed film follows the incredible life of Louis
“Louie” Zamperini who survived in a raft for 47 days after a
near-fatal plane crash during World War II—only to be caught by the
Japanese navy and sent to a series of prisoner-of-war camps.

Since
Louie’s story entails an abundance of events that unfold over
nearly a century, some difficult decisions had to be made about not
only how to tell the story but how much of it to tell movie
audiences.

Angelina
Jolie sent a working version of the script to Joel and Ethan Coen,
with whom she shares an agent and is quite friendly, to see if they’d
be willing to contribute to a new draft that reflected her
sensibilities. Celebrated Oscar®-winning filmmakers, the Coen
brothers’ output reflects a compelling and particular vision; they
seldom write material for other artists. But the brothers agreed that
a good story is a good story, and they were intrigued by Louie’s
life. One of Ethan’s sons was a fan of Laura Hillenbrand’s book
from which the movie is based, and Joel was similarly curious. Also,
the timing was right. They had just completed “Inside Llewyn Davis”
and were available to work on the script.

Jolie
felt that the filmic story should end with Louie’s return from the
war, believing his fascinating postwar life in California could be an
entirely new movie altogether. The Coens were in agreement. “It
seemed a shame not to film every aspect of Louie’s life,” Jolie
says, “but this is a different medium and we had to be true to
that. I made charts outlining all the themes of the story—Louie’s
faith, athletic ability, courage and endurance—all the themes that
run through `Unbroken,' so that even as we condensed sections we’d
be sure to include the material somehow, although we couldn’t
document all of Louie’s life.”

Working
closely with Jolie and producer Matthew Baer, the Coens set off to
streamline the story. They opened their version with a stunning
battle sequence between the crew of the B-24 Super Man aircraft
(Louie’s home bomber prior to the Green Hornet) and Japanese Zero
fighter planes over the South Pacific. Cutting back and forth from
the ferocious midair gunfight to Louie’s life as a wayward youth in
Torrance, the story introduces the audience to the young man who was
destined to become a lifelong survivor…and the family who gave him
the spirit and chutzpah to handle what was to come.

The
scene immediately thrusts the audience into the action and adventure
of the story, as well as infuses the film with the deep sense of the
spirituality that informs Hillenbrand’s book and, of course,
Louie’s existence. The themes and issues of his life—faith, war,
struggle, commitment, endurance and resilience—stand out boldly and
with alacrity.

Jolie,
Baer, Stoff and the studio were quite enthusiastic about the Coens’
script. “What I learned from the Coen brothers,” Jolie shares,
“was that what you feel when you put down Laura’s book is what
you need to feel when you walk out of the film.”

The
director admits that she feels such a huge responsibility telling
Louie’s story: “It sometimes keeps me up at night, but it also
inspires me and urges me on. I wanted to make this film because in
the end, Louie’s message is one that we all need, now more than
ever. Louie was an imperfect person, one whom we and our children can
look up to. He was someone who helped to remind us all what each of
us is capable of: to never lose heart, to gain strength from family,
to identify our fears and our pain, to define brotherhood with our
fellow man, to come face-to-face with the darkness and to never, ever
give up.”

Opening
across the Philippines on February 18, “Unbroken” is
distributed by United International Pictures through Columbia
Pictures.